Address at the Closing of the Valebasoga Sewing Training, LABASA - 28 September 2018

Invited Guests,Participants,Ladies and Gentlemen.

Bula Vinaka, Namaste, Salam Aleikum and a very Good Afternoon to you all.I am very pleased to be here this afternoon and be part of this great event. Indeed it is such a privilege to officiate in the closing of this all important training for women.

Sewing has long been regarded as the work for professional tailors and for many women sewing is a skill they aspire to learn. Many learn through hand sewing when they are of a young age and for the fortunate others through the more modern mechanical and electric sewing machine.Sewing has benefits that can help a woman.

Sewing your own clothes allows you to have a unique wardrobe.

Sewing with a needle and thread by hand, or by machine, requires hand eye co-ordination. Practising hand eye co-ordination actually helps to keep your brains as nimble as your fingers!

It is also therapeutic which will help you to be a calmer, happier and more content human being.

It is also known that sewing opens up your network of friends through the sharing of sewing ideas and patterns.

In today’s world and for us with big families, buying clothes is a never ending chore. Sewing your own clothes or that of your family’s, will ensure savings in the home and the love you will have for your home sewn clothes making them last longer.

In Fiji today, the Ministry of Youth and Sports has been carrying out sewing trainings all over the country for youths and women alike.

In doing so we are empowering women to become income generators for their homes and families. It is government’s effort in ensuring that your rights under the constitution is protected and that is your RIGHT TO ECONOMIC PARTICIPATION.

This gives you the freedom to choose your own work, trade, occupation, profession or other means of livelihood and government will take reasonable measures within its available resources to achieve the progressive realisation of each of your right.

The program you have participated in is part of the Ministry's plans to include young females into self-employment through skills training.

There are three objectives of this trainings and they are:

1. Young women to start their own small businesses;2. They be trained to be employed by other businesses;

and

3. To generate savings by sewing at home.

This program will also provide youth clubs with sewing machines which in turn would help members and those in their communities through upskilling and their engagement on income generating projects for their respective clubs and their families.

The program does not end there. Young women can apply through the young entrepreneurship programmes offered and selected participants would be further trained through other institutions with the support of the Ministry.

Through engagements with stakeholders, government have in place programmes that are designed to alleviate poverty in our communities and the country as a whole.

These programmes are primarily designed to ensure the financial securities of each recipient.

Food security is another programme that the ministry engages in through our Youth Training Centers in Naleba here in Labasa, Naqere in Savusavu, Nasau in Sigatoka and Yavitu in Naceva, Kadavu.

By training and empowering youths, government is also safeguarding their future and ensuring that they will be useful in their communities and contribute to their self and communal development.

These programmes have been made accessible more than ever and with it is government’s initiative for a more informed nation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, information is power. I encourage you all to take advantage of government’s drive for accessibility to information.

In this regards government is working to ensure that all of Fiji has access to wired and wireless network coverage. We have witnessed the power of the mobile phone and how it allows us access to information we can only dream of in the past.

Nonetheless accessibility to information comes with its advantages and disadvantages and we must take responsibility with what information we share and preserve.

I am certain that the information you have acquired through this sewing training is positive and will bring you joy and happiness.

As a saying goes “Sewing mends the soul”. When you sew, you have something that will last to show for your efforts.

I thus would like to take this moment to congratulate you all on the completion of this training and may it be the ‘game changer’ in your quest for success.

Ladies and Gentlemen I now take great pleasure in declaring the Valebasoga Sewing training officially closed.